Email Subscription

MMA UK interview’s Coalition Fight Music

I suppose it would be safe to say that Coalition Fight Music are the “Forefathers of Fight Music”. Mixing heavy hip hop beats with MMA based lyrics could be a tricky task, but these guys do it perfectly. As the sport grows bigger, more people will hear their music and understand the passion that they have for their craft and the idea around the music they make. MMA UK did an interview with Statecyde from the group about his influences, their theme song for Nick “Headhunter” Chapman and how the got the Coalition was formed…

Thanks for taking time out your schedule to talk to us at MMA UK Tony. First question, how did you get into music?

I was raised by a single mother who was always in the record shop. She always had all the new pop songs on vinyl/cassette and would play them in the car, on the way to school, at home etc. I guess her passion for music rubbed off on me.

You’ve definitely got some awesome rhymes, what types of MC’s were you influence by?

Thanks mate, that’s a really tough question. I was always influenced by MC’s that were story tellers. Tupac, Biggie, The GZA, Outkast, DMX, Eminem and even Devlin a bit.

What was the first MMA fight you saw and what sort of impact did it have on you and the rest of your crew?

Well I had seen the UFC since its first PPV but it was a lot different back then obviously. When I started to become really interested in the sport was after I watched PrideFC. All the legends, Wandy, CroCop, Fedor, Gomi, Rampage… that’s what got me back into the sport religiously. I would have parties and throw on MMA DVD’s and everybody started noticing.

How did you and the rest of the Coalition Fight Music crew get together and where did you get the idea from?

I’ve known The Relles forever, we all grew up together. We were all music junkies and had been working on our own solo projects/careers trying to get signed like everyone else when we thought to ourselves, “Why not form a coalition and focus our efforts?”

What was the process of making the album like for you guys?

It has been a real labour of love. We wanted to make an album where every song was designed to be a “single”. We are very proud of the outcome and how the album sounds as a whole.

Considering the fact that you guys are artists, was it difficult only having lyrics that reference MMA or was it an advantage?

That’s a great question. Believe it or not there are a lot of parallels between the fight business and the music business. It’s a real fight for independent musicians to make great music, and then to get the music played or noticed. Then there’s all the competition chasing the same dime, it can be very rough. You really have to have a lot of heart to have a shot just like fighting. Since we (CFM) all have that fighter spirit/mentality it just came very naturally.

You’ve got Phil Baroni on the album. What is he actually doing and how did that all get hooked up?

First of all Phil is a legend and a super, great guy. We came up with a skit called “What would you do?” Where we’d all ask each other what would we do if we were in various places/circumstances where standing there was “None other than… Phil Baroni. I wound up calling a famous MMA radio show in the states called MMAScraps Radio and pranked UFC Heavyweight fighter Pat HD Barry and Tapoutscrape from Tapout. The host of the show Travis posted a video clip the band put to the audio (as a sort of viral) on the UG http://www.mixedmartialarts.com and within hours the video had received over 2,000 hits. Even Phil Baroni commented on the forum. After that we hooked up on twitter and went to visit him at AKA (American Kickboxing Academy) to hang out a bit, do lunch and stuff. We asked Phil if he wanted to be on the album and he was like, “I’m down”.

How did you get hooked up with Nick “Headhunter” Chapman and what was it like writing a song that was going to be used by a British Fighter?

I wound up meeting a super publicist named Zara who has a PR firm in London called HaloPR. She represents Nick as well as several other big name fighters in the US/UK. I have always been quite the anglophile and very fond of UK boxers like Prince Naseem Hamed/Lennox Lewis. I’ve also followed the UK grime/garage music scene so reaching out to a British fighter and having him coming out to our tune is major. Also, big ups to the BBC 1xtra’s Charlie Sloth, he’s been very supportive of Nicks tune.

Where can the fans download the song from?

Anyone can check the song out at iTunes. Just type “HeadHunter” in the search box and it’ll come right up.

You’ve got an awesome video with Pat Barry for one of your songs, how did you guys manage to hook up with him?

Pat is another remarkable fighter and person. I actually hit him up on twitter right before his fight and told him he was going to get the KO of The Night bonus. Low and behold, he wound up getting the victory that night and the bonus. After his fight we hooked up on a MMA radio show, cut him the track and have been cool every since

You guys are pretty well known amongst MMA fans and with MMA quickly being pushed into popular culture, do you see the crew only getting bigger from there?

Yes certainly! As big as MMA is now both in the US and the UK, it’s still in its infancy. We’re just noticing the tip of the iceberg and we’ve got a whole generation of kids growing up watching and learning MMA. Not just learning one discipline like boxing/wrestling/jiu-jitsu or cross training but actually learning all the techniques simultaneously. The International talent pool is endless and the sky’s the limit. MMA’s best days are certainly still ahead.

Tony, thanks so much for your time. Where can the fans download the album from?

Thank you for the time bro, everyone can download the album off our official website http://www.coalitionfightmusic.com for free the first week. After that it’ll be available for download on iTunes/AmazonMP3/Rhapsody/Zune ect…

Anyone you’d like to thank?

Coalition Fight Music would like to thank UCMMA and Zara at HaloPR as well as all of the UK MMA fight fans.